The last two months of 2021 have been all kinds of tough, but luckily we are now finally in 2022. Happy New Year, everyone! I hope whatever unhappiness of yours has lagged behind in 2021 and that only Good Luck and Prosperity have made their way into 2022. I guess one day in the future, when Covid has long become history, some of us will be reminiscing about the years 2020–2021 (and certainly there will be books and movies too), but for now I just want the pandemic to quickly come to an end—that’s my biggest wish for 2022.

This post is neither a linguistics article nor a new year’s resolution, but simply some random thoughts that I happen to be having on the first day of the new year. I guess everyone has had some down moments during the pandemic. For me, the gloomiest days were in early-to-mid 2021. The biggest life progress I’ve made, on the other hand, is that I’ve finally learned to calmly live with imperfections—both my own and the world’s—for which I should partly thank the pandemic.

Another big life event for me was turning 30, which had been a most dreaded moment in my mind for years but in reality wasn’t all that abysmal (especially because I celebrated all my three birthdays this year in order to make it more special lol). Looking back at my past decade, I notice that nothing has ever happened according to plans, yet all that have happened do seem to be part of some unfathomable plan. Now that I’m older and hopefully wiser, I’m becoming more interested than before in living through the rest of The Plan—simply living through it but not worrying about it. I suppose that’s what my parents meant by “let it be” every time I whined to them in the past two years.

There are a couple things that I wanted to complete in 2021 but didn’t, including a few research papers, an iOS app, and an Old Chinese tutorial series. So, I guess I don’t need to make any new plans for the year ahead. If I could ever finish what I had started, 2022 would already be a bountiful year of my life. Meanwhile, I will also dedicate more time to my blog. Overall goal: make my surroundings more contentful.🙃

The pandemic has taught the world how important health is. Compared to health, nothing else really matters. I’ve been to the hospital many times in the past two years (not for Covid) and therefore can understand this more vividly than many others. I wish I could be healthier in the new year, even if that means I will have to work less. In the past year (especially in its first half), I smashed several glasses. I hope I won’t continue smashing things in this year. It seems the pandemic is making me less dexterous than before, so I’ll do more handwriting and spend more time on the piano in the new year as well.

Finally, I would like to summarize my life in 2021 in three numbers: 0, 1, 2. I traveled zero times, said no once, and moved twice. In 2022 I would like to make the sequence continue (hopefully in a more auspicious way): 3, 4, 5. I look forward to finding out what these numbers stand for.😃

Happy New Year again! Wish y’all the best of luck in 2022! 🎉🍀

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